Take a look at it if you choose to browse through it in advance of our Genealogy Program that will take place on Tuesday evening, February 11, 2014 at 7:30 PM at our main library location at 130 S. Roselle Road in Schaumburg, IL.

You can read the newsletter online or you can save it as a PDF file to your own computer for reading offline and more detailed searching through all of the contents.

Please note that the Newsletter has Bookmarks and Hyperlinks within the document to make for fast navigation from within the Table of Contents. You can quickly get to the spots that interest you from the Table of Contents.

It is that time once again when we will be having another Genealogy Program at the central location of the Schaumburg Township District Library on Tuesday evening, February 11, 2014 at 7:30 PM. We are located at 130 S. Roselle Road in Schaumburg, IL.

There is no pre-registration required in order to attend the program. There is no fee charged to attend. Anyone can attend this program. You do not have to be a library card holder with the Schaumburg Township District Library in order to attend.

Here is a summary of the information about the program:

The Genealogy program will be held on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 at 7:30 PM in the 2nd floor Classroom. The guest speaker for the evening will be Barbara Peterson. Barbara will present a program titled “First Contact: Making Connections With Newly Discovered Relatives”.

Have you reached out to your newly discovered living “cousins” as a result of your genealogical research? It can be challenging because you don’t know how you will be viewed by these “family members”. All genealogy researchers that “reach out” will face this unknown connection effort. Will you be “rebuffed” and told to “leave us alone”? Maybe! Or, will you be embraced by the curiosity of these newly discovered “cousins”. Maybe!

Barbara Peterson is an avid and tenacious genealogy researcher who almost always is seated in our genealogy program each month listening to our monthly program just like you. She is one of you! She wants to share her “highs” and “lows” of trying to connect to newly discovered living cousins. She has discovered some methods on how to interact with them to increase the chances of making a good, solid, friendly connection that can propel the family research even further with new items of information that can be shared.

So listen up to Barb before you make that “cold” call or send that first e-mail to someone who probably does not know you from “Adam”. Hear the experiences from Barb and the tips she can offer to you before you make that next important “contact” you will embark on.

The doors to the room will open at approximately 7 PM so participants can pick up any handouts, review books and journals and interact with other participants. Tony Kierna, the STDL genealogist, will start the program at 7:30. Introductions of new participants will occur as well as a brief review of handouts and genealogical matters. It is expected that the guest speaker’s presentation will start at around 7:45-8:00 PM. We will end the session by 9:30 PM.

I just recently became aware that the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints (LDS) in Wilmette, IL will be holding an all-day Family History Day on Saturday, March 22, 2014 from 8 AM to 5 PM.

The all-day event will take place at 2727 Lake Avenue (Lake and Locust) in Wilmette, IL.

Attendance is free, but registration is required.

For those of you that have gone to the Wilmette, IL Family History Center (FHC) to do research, the event will be held at the same church facility. It is just not clear to me whether it will actually take place in the FHC room itself or in another larger available part of the facility. But the facility address is the same location where you may have done previous on-site genealogy research using the resources at the FHC that is there.

“Stories that Bring Us Together” is the theme for the 2014 Wilmette Illinois Family History Center’s family history fair. This free all-day event features local speakers, video workshops with content from RootsTech, hands-on activities for youth and children, and exhibit booths. The Family History Center will also be open for research and lunch will be available.

This is the text description of the event that I obtained from the flyer:

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Connect Your Family—Past, Present, and FutureAttend Family History Day, and learn how to strengthen yourfamily across generations. Hear encouraging messages fromexperts in the industry and other popular speakers who will helpinspire you to:• Seek out your ancestors.• Build your family tree.• Discover and share your families’ stories.

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The Wilmette, IL Family History Center is an outstanding center. I have been to both the Schaumburg one and the Wilmette one and the Wilmette facility is very large in physical size compared to the Schaumburg one. The Wilmette, IL facility also has a very large amount of on-site microfilms, many focusing on the Chicago area including many of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago church films.

Mark this date and give it a try regardless of your skill level of doing genealogy research. If you are a true Beginner, this fair may be especially helpful to you as you begin your research journey.

I have been receiving some activities updates from the Swedish American Museum in Chicago, IL recently. Some of the activities may be specifically related to genealogical events or programs. Other events may have a historical context as it applies to Swedish history and ancestry. Some events may be cultural.

I thought I would share with you a recent issue of the February 2014 Newsletter called the Cirkular that I received from the Swedish American Museum.

The museum itself is located at 5211 North Clark Street in Chicago, IL. The phone number for the museum is 773-728-8111.

It actually looks like there is plenty to do if you are interested in discovering more about Swedish history and ancestry.

Go to the following link and take a peek at all that you could be doing during February 2014 at the Swedish American Museum:

There is a genealogy program scheduled for Saturday February 22, 2014 from 10:00 AM to 12 Noon at the Museum. The title of the program is “Members Share Their Sweden Stories”. From their website, here is a description of the program:

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GENEALOGY SESSION

Saturday, Feb. 22, 10 a.m. – noon

Many people like to travel and genealogists are no exception. After their first trip to Sweden, they often forego the usual tourist haunts such as Gamla Stan, the Vasa Museum and the Göta Canal. Instead, genealogists head to the area where their ancestors lived. Perhaps they spend time with newly found relatives or visit the church where their grandparents were married. Come hear their stories on Saturday, Feb. 22 at the Nordic Family Genealogy Center at the Swedish American Museum. Thinking of retracing your roots to Sweden? This would be a great session for you to come to and collect tips for planning your own journey. You may email or call the Museum at 773.728.8111 and leave a message for the Genealogy Center volunteer with any questions.

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See what interests you. Make a connection with the society if you are digging deep into your Swedish roots. Take at look at all of the cultural doings going on at the Museum during the month of February 2014.

I thought I would post this reminder of our next upcoming Genealogy Program at the Schaumburg Township District Library.

There is no pre-registration required in order to attend the program. There is no fee charged to attend. Anyone can attend this program. You do not have to be a library card holder with the Schaumburg Township District Library in order to attend.

Here are the details of our upcoming program for Tuesday evening, February 11, 2014:

The Genealogy program will be held on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 at 7:30 PM in the 2nd floor Classroom. The guest speaker for the evening will be Barbara Peterson. Barbara will present a program titled “First Contact: Making Connections With Newly Discovered Relatives”.

Have you reached out to your newly discovered living “cousins” as a result of your genealogical research? It can be challenging because you don’t know how you will be viewed by these “family members”. All genealogy researchers that “reach out” will face this unknown connection effort. Will you be “rebuffed” and told to “leave us alone”? Maybe! Or, will you be embraced by the curiosity of these newly discovered “cousins”. Maybe!

Barbara Peterson is an avid and tenacious genealogy researcher who almost always is seated in our genealogy program each month listening to our monthly program just like you. She is one of you! She wants to share her “highs” and “lows” of trying to connect to newly discovered living cousins. She has discovered some methods on how to interact with them to increase the chances of making a good, solid, friendly connection that can propel the family research even further with new items of information that can be shared.

So listen up to Barb before you make that “cold” call or send that first e-mail to someone who probably does not know you from “Adam”. Hear the experiences from Barb and the tips she can offer to you before you make that next important “contact” you will embark on.

The doors to the room will open at approximately 7 PM so participants can pick up any handouts, review books and journals and interact with other participants. Tony Kierna, the STDL genealogist, will start the program at 7:30. Introductions of new participants will occur as well as a brief review of handouts and genealogical matters. It is expected that the guest speaker’s presentation will start at around 7:45-8:00 PM. We will end the session by 9:30 PM.

Registration for the conference closes on Tuesday, February 11, 2014. You can still register yourself to attend by this soon approaching date. Your cost will be $60 and you will still get a guaranteed lunch. You can register yourself online using Pay Pal or your Credit Card as a Guest.

Here is the link to get to the DCGS 2014 Annual Conference Registration Page:

If you miss the final registration date and still want to attend, you can do so as a “walk-in”. Being a “walk-in” will require you pay the $60 fee at the door but please note that there is no guarantee of a lunch for you. It is also possible that you might not be able to attend certain parts of the program if the society knows that the numbers noted to attend an individual program from those already registered already showed a higher number of attendees for that particular program than the room can accommodate.

So for the above reasons if you are thinking of attending and have not registered already, you still have by February 11, 2014 to get yourself registered.

Time is running out for registration, especially if you are sure you are going to attend. You can always take your chance as a walk-in but why not get yourself registered by February 11, 2014 and forget all the hassle.

This has proven to be a wildly successful major genealogical conference that brings together genealogy researchers and genealogy software developers under one roof. Estimates indicate that about 9,000 attendees were present for the 2013 conference. Of the 9,000, 2,000 were teens that attended a special program targeted for youth. In addition, another 14,000 individuals participated online via programs that were streamed. This is truly a major event in the world of genealogy!! The above statistics were gotten from a Dick Eastman blog post from March 25, 2013. You can read the entirety of Dick’s blog post about RootsTech 2013 here:

If you want to know more about what RootsTech in general is all about, visit the following link to a series of 16 Videos produced by RootsTech from their 2013 program. These are videos of stunning quality! I think you may want to look at what the videos showcase about what RootsTech is all about. They may not all be at a very specific research level, they are often at a “larger view” of what technical developments are occurring that connect to genealogical research.

You can really get the “big picture” by looking at any one of the videos.

Consider going to Salt Lake City, UT to connect with the soon to take place 2014 version of RootsTech! (It may be a little hard for you to hop on that big plane right now since I am issuing this post with some new online streaming class availability information on February 3, 2014!!)